1984 Final Prompt

Victoria Becker
English 1984 Prompt

During the infamous speech when O'Brien is confronting Winston about the true ideologies of Big Brother and The Party, many things are addressed. Throughout the novel, one of the burning questions Winston had was, "Do people think like me? Am I the minority?" O'Brien answers this almost immediately when he tells Winston that he is a lunatic and what he sees is distorted. Ingsoc is based on complete psychological and physical control. When the Thought police discover someone who doesn't agree with their rules, they take them to The Ministry of Truth and alter their entire thought process. It isn't enough to just "vaporize them". They can not be seen as a martyr (even though it would be considered thought crime to even acknowledge his disappearance). The Party and O'Brien both know that Winston and Julia will both be killed. They want them to go through complete transformation before they disappear in the night. This is related with the control Big Brother wants. He wouldn't be satisfied if people hated him, he wants everybody to LOVE Big Brother and then feel that they deserved to die because they made a huge mistake and error in judgement.

"And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself." -Julia

Julia says these lines to Winston in Book Three, Chapter VI, as they discuss what happened to them in Room 101. She tells him that she wanted her torture to be shifted to him, and he agrees that he felt the same way. These acts of betrayal represent the Party's final psychological victory. After their experiences in Room 101, Winston and Julia are set free because no longer pose a threat to the Party. Winston knows that in order to save his self he really did want the Party to torture Julia. In the end, the Party proves to Winston and Julia that no moral conviction or emotional loyalty is strong enough to withstand torture. Physical pain and fear will always cause people to betray their convictions if doing so will end their suffering. This greatly upsets Winston because they both promised that no matter what horrible things happened they would never betray each other. Winston claimed that they could never alter your heart. You could confess to whatever ridiculous crime, but they could never make him stop loving Julia.
Though his time at the Ministry of Love has destroyed his mind and individuality, his love for Big Brother is now the main focus. Winston still envisions the day that the Party will shoot him. He sits quietly at the Chestnut Cafe and knows that his true fate would be. It surprised me that this came to him as a shock that he would get caught. It was him who said eventually everyone gets caught and they are the dead.

"Power is tearing human minds apart and putting them back together in new shapes of your own choosing." -O'Brien

Ultimately, Winston loses his spirit and his humanity, the two characteristics that he fought so hard to keep. Orwell insists that Winston’s fate could happen to anyone, and it is for this reason that Orwell destroys Winston in the end, so that the reader may understand Orwell’s warning and see that the society of 1984 never come to pass. I'm not sure what would be a continuous to this novel or what would happen. I would like to think that Winston really doesn't bow down the The Party and is just demonstrating an excellent version of doublethink, but after analyzing the many ways of control, it's safe to say that Winston and Julie are not the rebelling, unique lovers. They are just like every other comrade who accepts that 2+2=5 and that they were always at war with East Asia and Big Brother is God.

"If you want a vision of the future, Winston, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever." -O'Brien